Speech in the Plenary Debate of the European Parliament to Ban DU Ammunition – 21 May 2008

This debate has been overdue. So it is good that we have it today. Depleted uranium has been used by many states and above all by Western states as ammunition in their wars, because depleted uranium has a great penetrating power, mainly against tanks. But DU ammunition is both chemically highly toxic and radioactive. DU ammunition is also a by-product of the nuclear industry occurring in the uranium enrichment process or in the production of nuclear weapons. The utilization of nuclear energy is also at the root of the problem.

DU ammunition has long-term effects. When hitting a hardened target, DU is released at high temperatures and burned, resulting in DU oxide and a fine alpha-radioactive dust which can be easily inhaled and spread by wind and water. This dust is difficult to remove from the environment and settles into the lungs after inhaling. There is the Gulf War Syndrome, the Balkan Syndrome, and the same phenomenon has to be noted again and again, namely that soldiers are obviously getting cancer, for example, cancer of the lungs. There is also an increase in such cancer phenomena among the population living in such areas where these weapons were used.

Interestingly, the military effectivity of DU ammunition is very low, but there are lots of non-calculable risks associated with it. The NATO used DU ammunition in the war of aggression against Yugoslavia. In Iraq, the US Army used DU ammunition – a total of 300 tons. There is an increased number of malformed children, in particular, in Baghdad. The government of Afghanistan has now requested that the use of DU ammunition in Afghanistan be investigated, and the government says that it had not been informed by the U.S. military that DU ammunition had mainly been used in Eastern Afghanistan. In the Lebanon War, DU ammunition was mainly used by Israel; and in the first Gulf War, DU ammunition was also used very extensively. There is talk about 66,000 contaminated soldiers.

The problem is evident. In the meantime, the first veterans get War Disablement Pensions as a result of this DU ammunition, for example, Kenny Duncan from Great Britain. If DU ammunition were cosmetics or a substance in connection with food, it would have been prohibited long ago. Soldiers are instructed to put on protective suits when dealing with DU ammunition. The Association of Soldiers EUROMIL requests to ban these weapons. Belgium has banned DU ammunition. Congratulations to that end! In connection with the voting in the Disarmament Committee of the United States, 122 countries voted for the ban, 35 countries absented from the vote, 6 voted against it, among them France, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and the Czech Republic. What we need is a ban of the use, the storage, and the production of DU ammunition.